The Invisible Black Woman

Well, it was my sincere hope to get this done two days ago, but if the title is any indication, the struggle was real. I wish my delay was tied to something fun like an impromptu getaway or an overindulgence after date night. The truth of the matter is what kept me away is my version of Dexter’s dark passenger: chronic pain. It has followed me the better part of my life and played a big role on why I decided long before I met hubby that I had no interest in having children. But, as I often say, that’s a story for another day. Of the laundry list of things I am currently dealing with in the chronic pain front, one popped up a bit more recently after I had surgery a couple of years back. The gag is that I should have seen this coming, but let me not get ahead of myself.

I have been trying and failing for more time than I care to admit to lose weight. The reasons vary, but none you haven’t heard before. To get healthy, feel good about myself, like what I see in the mirror, and on and on the reasons went. So I’d always meant to get serious about losing weight. Then life happened. And worse yet, work happened, where it was all I could do to not just keep a regular sleep schedule, but stop myself from eating my feelings. And more often than not, the feelings won out.

You don’t really realize it’s crept up on you until your usual outfits don’t hit the way they used to, or you start sweating or getting winded faster than you remember when going for a short walk. Suddenly, there’s aches and pains you don’t remember having that the over-the-counter medication just isn’t dulling in any way shape or form.

So fast-forward to Tuesday, after finally breaking down and scheduling an appointment for this knee pain that went from a sometimes bother to a “I will not be denied or ignored from this point forward” pain. I realized I was in trouble the day before when hubby and I tried to go for an evening walk and I barely made it 15 minutes before my knee starts locking up on me. Then if it wasn’t locking up, it felt like my knee was trying to be anywhere but in its socket. So a walk that would normally take us 30 minutes round trip took about an hour after I made it less than halfway through and realized I wasn’t gon make it any further.

I decide to go online and look up my symptoms. I already knew I had arthritis in both my knee joints. And while I may be full grown, I ain’t exactly at the age where someone should have to be worrying about arthritis, but here I was. So I’m thinking I probably went and partially dislocated my knee. All the symptoms matched to a T. Just a regular Dr. House over here.

I had already scheduled an appointment to see the doctor the next day the week before, so I wasn’t expecting any surprises when he told me what I’d already diagnosed for myself. We got there and wouldn’t you know, it was at the same campus we went for my breast exam/doctor’s orders for an ultrasound. But it was on the opposite side of where we went last time.

Y’all, until you have to walk in pain, you don’t truly understand or appreciate just how far things can be from where you are to where you need to go. It took us 15 minutes to get to the office and sign in. I’ve never been so glad to have a 15-minute grace period from the time your appointment is scheduled. We damn near used every bit of those 15 minutes.

I would be lying if I said that in the middle of the long, drawn out walk, I wasn’t thinking about what the doctor would say to me. I was used to having my symptoms dismissed more than a time or two. It only got worse when I began putting on weight. There were many times where my symptoms just got lumped into, “oh, you’re morbidly obese.” That seems to often be a catch-all for “we have no friggin idea what the hell is the matter with you so we’ll just say it’s your fault, go lose weight, and then you’ll feel better.” I’d also be lying if I didn’t note that there was a direct correlation between the race of the provider and those assumptions. I always had to have a Rolodex ready to fire back at them when they tried to come at me with something. The number of times I’ve had doctors legit surprised at my blood pressure is staggering. And that is to say that I have the blood pressure of someone who, to have them tell it, should be much much smaller than I am.

Like I always say, “don’t let the appearance fool you. There’s a fit body beneath the layers you see.” I’ve always gotten a kick out of lapping people much smaller than me and having them look surprised or amazed because someone that looks like me isn’t supposed to be able to do that. So now, I find it amusing rather than offending, to see the looks of confusion when the next Dr. Ignoramus sees my blood pressure reading look as good as it does.

I say all that to say that yes, I mentally prepared myself for the real possibility that this would be a similar situation, but I prayed to God that I would be proven wrong. And, thankfully, I was. Every single person there was super nice and helpful. To the point that internally I was giving them dubious side eye. That’s how much it was throwing me.

A little bit after I signed in and sat down, a woman came out and called me to the back. Heidi escorted hubby and I to an exam room where she did my intake and took my vitals.

“Okay, so the nurse will be in to examine you shortly, then you’ll see the doctor. Do you have any questions?”

“Nope, I’m good.”

A few minutes after Heidi left, we heard a knock on the door.

Carol introduced herself and said she wanted to go over things with me.

“Okay, I want you to sit here so I can examine you.”

She motioned over to the examination table—I always found it weird that they call beds examination tables and not beds, but what do I know.

I tried to make it onto the table in one swoop, but I underestimated my vertical challenges.

“I don’t know why I thought I could make it up here without the step stool.”

I grabbed the step stool then managed to make it up on the exam table.

“So where do you feel the pain?”

I gestured all the areas where I felt the pain. Then she started pressing around until she got what she came for. That’s what I call it when a provider keeps pressing around until they get you to wince or scream out in pain. I did a very respectable but forceful, “YEP, that’s it there.”

“Okay we’re gonna take some x-rays of your knee to see what’s going on.”

I bet it’s dislocated.

A little bit later, Miriam the x-ray tech came in to escort me to get my x-rays.

“Do I just hang out here?” hubby asked.

“Absolutely. I’ll bring her right back, promise.”

And with that, we shuffled off to the x-ray room. God bless all of them for being as patient as they were as I slowly made my way. Even slowing down or stopping to make sure they didn’t leave me behind.

A seeming eternity later, we made it to the x-ray room.

“Okay. I’m going to take a few films of both your knees for comparison purposes.”

That made total sense to me.

She gave me several instructions and took several different angles. Each time she took an x-ray, she stopped to make sure the image was satisfactory. All in all, it took less time for her to take those x-rays than it took for me to walk from the exam room to the x-ray room.

“All right. We’re all done. I’m going to take you back to the exam room now and the doctor will come in and see you once he’s looked at your x-rays.”

“Sounds good.”

I shuffle-hobbled my way to the exam room, Miriam a bit ahead of me to show me where to go so I didn’t get turned around.

After I finally made it there, I plopped myself in the nearest chair with relief.

“Okay, just hang tight. The doctor will be in to see you soon.”

“Thank you.”

Miriam left and closed the door behind her.

“How did it go?”

“It was okay. Exhausting and painful, but okay.”

“I’m sorry, sweetie.”

“Yep. That’s me: sorry sweetie.”

That has become the infinite running joke between hubby and I, every time one of us is dealing with yet another health issue we didn’t see coming.

I really and truly could stand to wait to see what Murphy had up his sleeve this time around.